


Sheltered

by Nebulad



Series: The Waters of Life [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: F/M, Fluff, meet cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 07:16:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6508165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nebulad/pseuds/Nebulad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dani hurried up to the cash, hoping for— a drink? She remembered that the beggar outside had asked for water and she did have a few caps to her name—</p><p>She screamed.</p><p>Behind the bar there was what she was sure was a zombie, with chunks of skin missing from his face and nose and ears rotted away. He flinched when she shouted when then fixed her with a hard, angry look that made her blood run cold because <i>god this is the part where my flesh the ripped from my body</i>. He was straight out of a Grognak comic, the risen undead come to— </p><p>No one else seemed phased by the walking corpse slowly wiping down the bar and giving her a hard, irritable look. “Never seen a fucking Ghoul before?” he asked shortly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fresh Out of the Vault

“You… you do realize there’s a bomb in the middle of your town, right?” Dani couldn’t take her eyes off it as a matter of fact, and couldn’t believe that there were _people_ standing around it chanting, with their arms upraised.

“Don’t trust anyone in town to tinker with it,” Luca Simms told her. “Though if you happen to be one of them Vault Engineers, you’re welcome to try— just don’t get us all killed,” he said sternly. She nodded. “If you need supplies for the job, you go see Moira Brown.”

“I’ll try it in the morning,” she said. The fading light wouldn’t be good for delicate bomb work, no matter how elementary it might have been. She was going to be a Pip-boy Tinkerer, back in the Vault, and knew enough combined science and repair technology to confidently fiddle with the thing. Maybe. _Better safe than sorry— wait a little bit._ “Is there anywhere I could grab a room?”

He looked at her oddly, then shook his head. “Moriarty’s Saloon is up a little ways from Craterside Supply—” she went rigid at the name, her heart starting to pound because _Moriarty knew where Dad was,_ Simms had said it himself _—_ “but you be careful around him, hear me? He’s no good but we can’t run him out without the local economy collapsing.”

“Yes sir,” she said faintly, then started to hike her way up. She could see the saloon’s sign lit with dirty yellow bulbs, and it only took her a few minutes to find her way to his door and walk in.

It was small, cramped, wooden, and dirty just like the rest of the town. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting- maybe that the place was clean and metallic like the Vault, because she couldn’t reconcile the image of her clean-cut Daddy anywhere but in his lab. There was a man with white hair scowling at a woman with torn stockings, and a few more people in those ratted white settler outfits milling around the bar. She hurried up to the cash, hoping for— a drink? She remembered that the beggar outside had asked for water and she _did_ have a few caps to her name—

She screamed.

Behind the bar there was what she was sure was a zombie, with chunks of skin missing from his face and nose and ears rotted away. He flinched when she shouted when then fixed her with a hard, angry look that made her blood run cold because _god this is the part where my flesh the ripped from my body._ He was straight out of a Grognak comic, the risen undead come to—

No one else seemed phased by the walking corpse slowly wiping down the bar and giving her a hard, irritable look. “Never seen a fucking Ghoul before?” he asked shortly, and she snapped her mouth shut, her face flushing bright red.

“A Ghoul?” she asked quietly, almost to herself. He glowered at her.

“You heard me,” he snapped. “Fucking bigot.”

She felt her chest twist. “I’m... sorry? I haven’t seen a Ghoul before, I didn’t even know… they never told me anything about Ghouls—”

“You just crawl out of a fucking Vault, kid?” he asked. She nodded eagerly, relieved that he recognized that. She would tip him really well— once she looked at him head on he really wasn’t all that bad (gnarled up a bit sure, dry and flaking skin, but that wasn’t… it wasn’t worth a _shriek)_. “You uh… you aren’t supposed to answer _yes_ to that.”

“But… I did,” she said uncertainly.

“It means you’re stupid, kid,” he told her, looking uncomfortable.

“Why?” she asked with a frown. “I ain’t stupid. I was gunna be a Pip-boy Tinkerer.”

“What are you talking about?” the Ghoul asked, then seemed to finally look at her properly. His eyebrows raised. “Shit you… you mean it? You just crawled up out of a Vault?” he asked, and she nodded eagerly.

“Vault 101, it isn’t very far from here. I killed a few people and had to leave,” she said, then frowned. “People who uhm. Well at least one of them deserved it and the rest were guards…”

“What are you doing up in the Wastelands?” he asked, pausing in his incessant wiping down of a glass that was only smearing the dirt around.

“I’m looking for my father,” she said, breathless excitement rising in her chest. “He’s middle aged, Mexican like me, he’s got grey hair and was probably wearing a jumpsuit like mine— though I guess his might have had a lab coat, maybe—”

“You gotta talk to Colin, kid,” the Ghoul said, shaking his head. Her stomach dropped because _he_ clearly knew something but of _course_ he wouldn't tell her because she screamed like a little kid when she’d seen him.

“My name’s Dani,” she told him.

“Gob.”

“That’s yours?” she asked hopefully. He nodded. “That’s actually great, I like that,” she said. It suited him. He seemed immensely suspicious of her suddenly. “Look I’m sorry I screamed. I’m really _really_ sorry I did because it was a huge overreaction, it’s just… they don’t tell us real things in the Vault. They said everyone who wasn’t in a Vault went _wild_ after the bombs dropped, that everyone was a bandit or some sort of flesh eating super mutant—”

“I got bad news for you— those exist,” he said. She went wane. “They hang out up around D.C, mostly. They occasionally come around here to drag people off but Megaton’s as safe as it gets, besides Rivet City.”

“W-Well. I’ll look out then,” she mumbled. He snorted. “Anyway, what I’m saying is that I was really wound up and I just… I’m sorry. It was rude of me and you’re not that bad,” she said. _I can feel bad about accidentally insulting a Ghoul but not about murdering Amata’s father._

“Eh, you’re all right,” he said, waving his hand. “Hardly the worst I’ve gotten, and a fake compliment is better than spitting in my face.”

“It wasn’t fake… it wasn’t even really a compliment. I can be much nicer than _you’re not that bad,”_ she protested.

“I don’t have a nose, Vaultie.”

“So?”

He shook his head. “You don’t know a lot about Ghouls, do you?” he asked. She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter anyway— this is probably the longest I’ve talked to anyone but Nova since I got here. You’re all right,” he said. She smiled. “So I suppose you want me to tell you about your dad?” he asked.

“If… if that was all right. I mean I didn’t apologize just to get the information out of you.”

“Relax, Vaultie. Kindness for a kindness— your dad was here, went in the back to talk to Moriarty, came out and left. He ain’t here no more but…” He leaned in a little and seemed a little thrown off when she did the same, but didn’t mention it. “Colin has a computer terminal in the back where he takes notes on blackmail shit he has on all the residents. If an outsider is interesting enough to have notes on, he’ll probably have that too,” he said quickly, pulling himself back behind the bar.

“Is he back there now?” she asked. He nodded.

“He goes out on a smoke break every morning around eight or nine. I won’t tell if you don’t— he’d beat the shit out of me just for talking to you about the terminal,” he said, which made her frown.

“You’re his employee, he can’t do that,” she protested. Gob laughed.

“Yeah, _employee._ Don’t worry about it,” he said, then gestured over to where the white haired man and the woman with torn tights were still arguing. “The guy is Moriarty— do your best to stay out of his line of sight, especially with the Vault suit. He doesn’t usually go out of his way to notice customers so don’t start a fight or talk to him and you’re fine. The woman he’s talking to is Nova, and she knows the passcode for the computer if you can sweeten her up like you did me.”

“I _wasn’t—”_

“Whatever, kid. Talk to Nova for a room, I gotta get back to work.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right well okay this. Certainly is. I'm posting it because it's been sitting in my drafts literally for fucking ever and I wanted everyone to know right off the bat that Hancock was not the first Ghoul I fell in love with and that distinction goes directly to the sweetest bartender in the world. And also I know that this straight up ignores like most of Gob's actual story but 1) at the time I wrote it, I didn't know that he had any more story than what I saw and 2) he's a fucking side character anyway let me live. not that I think anyone will argue the point with me but. just to put that out there.


	2. Atom Bomb Baby

Maybe Ghouls were more sensitive to the presence of radiation or something, but Gob was sure he _felt_ when the time-bomb in the centre of town stopped ticking. Vaultie walked in looking smug as shit with her jumpsuit rolled down to her hips and tied, to block the numbers splayed across her back. “How much is a Nuka, Gob?” she asked, settling down across from him.

“For you?” he asked.

“Who else?” she replied, grinning. “Not a lot on me but figured I’d ask. Just disarmed a fucking bomb without making _Craterside_ literal,” she said.

“The cult didn’t try to stop you?” She shook her head.

“Nah, told them I was maintaining it. Gods get rusty too, and the Confessor wasn’t there to dispute me. Gave her a polish after I disarmed her and no one the wiser. They’ll have to look for a new source of radiation to worship— not that the bomb isn’t radioactive anymore but you know what I mean.” He handed her a Nuka and waved away her caps. She didn’t have enough but she had prevented him from becoming a leg and a smear on the wall.

“You know that’s me, right?” he asked. She frowned. “I’m the new source of radiation. I-I mean it isn’t like I’m irradiating you right now—” he said quickly, flinching back on reflex. “Ghouls are humans exposed to too much radiation and lived through it,” he explained quickly. “Next to that bomb I’m probably the most irradiated thing in town. The cultists get this wide eyed look whenever they see me, it’s sort of… creepy,” he said. She laughed.

“Well, if someone rigs you to explode Gob, you know who to call,” she said, tipping the wide-brimmed hat she wore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im having way too much fun with these chapter titles and yes I'm going to post it all right now and yes im sorry yall are getting so many emails lately. jesus there are literally 59 of you getting emails from me like wowie and sorry. anyway feedback is welcome if you're feeling it and my writing blog is right here which I forgot to mention first off and will repeat at the end.


	3. Knock Knock

She disappeared and reappeared like clockwork— functioning clockwork too, not all the broken analogues that littered the Wastelands— and always came with stories. When she staggered in after a month long absence with dirty old leather armour tied to her in the spots where it was too big to fit, though, she just settled down across from Gob and took a few deep breaths, resting her forehead against the smudged countertop. “Bad trip, Vaultie?” he asked carefully. He was never sure how to approach her; he hadn’t had a smoothskin friend besides Nova in a long time, and a fellow slave wasn’t really real world practice for normal relationships.

“You got a family, Gob?” she asked faintly, saving him from the awkward silence.

“Yeah, got a mom— well, she ain’t my birth mom. Ghouls don’t work like that but she’s the same thing. Left her back in Underworld,” he said, then paused. “You catch your dad’s trail yet?” he asked. She snorted.

“He’s one step ahead of me and I can’t tell if it’s because he’s faster or because he knows I’m chasing him,” she said, then shook her head. “Sorry. That was… weird and personal.”

“S’all right.” It really was, and not even because it was better than Jericho walking in half drunk already and openly cringing at him. _That_ was tiring, not listening to a perfectly nice human talk about her family.

“You’re a good listener Gobbie, and sometimes I forget that I’m boring,” she said, lifting her head up and resting her chin on her palm. “Moriarty should give you a raise.”

“Can’t make less than I’m making now,” he said, and it was a Nova joke. It was a joke for someone who understood Gob’s situation, and didn’t just think of Moriarty as a bad boss.

“Do you ever get out to see your mom?” she asked, and he could feel that she was about to be let in on the joke. _Knock knock, who’s there, I’m a slave._

“Nah. Too dangerous for me to be wandering the Wastes,” he said. “For every weird irradiated mutant that leaves Ghouls alone there’s an entire club full of humans who shoot on sight.”

“I could go with you,” she said brightly. “Me and Daisy’ll keep the nasties off.”

“Daisy?” he asked flatly.

“My gun, Gobbie. Excels at headshots and mayhem,” she said, reaching back to pat the grip. “Not the point I’m trying to make though. We should go see your mama.”

“Moriarty wouldn’t spare me,” he said dismissively, wishing she’d drop it.

“Come _on_ Gob, it can’t hurt to ask.”

“Yes, _yes_ it can.” It very much could and if Gob came to him asking for _time off,_ the man would make sure it hurt as much as possible. “I’m throwing down last call, Vaultie. If you wanna get hammered, be my guest— if not, talk to Nova for a room.”

“You didn’t hear already then? I’m a bonafide resident of Megaton now, Gobbie. Simms handed me the keys himself, for disarming the bomb,” she said, bringing them out to jangle a bit.

“Congrats. Get drunk or go home, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fair warning im playing fast and loose with hours of operation and also probably Gob's ability to call it but nothing ends a fucking shot like getting kicked out.


	4. Bullet Wound Buds

She got a haircut after she got shot for the first time. She came in to show him the wound, then afterwards to show him her hair. It flopped over in her eyes still, but was smoothed back and short instead of tangled and down to her shoulders. It made her look older, even as she nursed her bullet wound. “Church barely patched me up,” she complained. “Said he’d seen worse before he even woke up.”

“Probably has,” Gob said. “I got stimpaks if it’ll make you feel better.”

“Nah, I ain’t got a cap on me for bottling a Nuka right now. I’m trying to make the house nicer,” she said, drumming her fingers on the table. Gob snorted.

“Middle of the wastes and you decide to play interior decorator?” he asked. She shook her head.

“Nah, the… _decorative_ stuff that Moira sells is kind of…” she waved her hand back and forth, indicating _so-so_ , but Gob wasn’t quite getting it. “Well, there was the Raider theme— don’t even wanna _know_ where Moira got all the corpses for that. The Explorer theme that puts a giant picnic table in the middle of my foyer—”

“The fuck is a _foyer?”_

“The entrance, Gobbie, throw me a bone here. Then there was the uh… _love machine_ theme. Used that one for about a night before giving up on it,” she said, shrugging her shoulders uncomfortably.

“Sounds cosy,” he teased.

“I think I spent a solid hour staring in dumb horror at the giant hanging sculpture of two women fucking,” she said, tracing a few circles into the dirt on the counter.

“So what did you settle with?” he asked.

“Got a bunch of… machines. I’m tuning them but I think it’s stressing me out,” she said. “See, I’m real good with machines, and I thought _well shit I’ve never been exposed to radiation in my life, I oughta check up on that—”_

“Gotta be careful with rads,” he said, pointing at himself.

“I could do worse,” she said, grinning. He snorted, suddenly very unsure of where he was standing in this conversation.

“So uh… your machines working then?” he asked. She huffed a little but nodded.

“Yeah, but I think I tuned them a little too fine. They make this godawful alarm noise, scares the _shit_ out of me,” she said with a frown. “I’m not even irradiated, it just picks up on the resistance I have to it.”

“Remind me never to visit you, Vaultie,” he said.

“That’s cold, Gobbie.”

“What, like I was gunna visit you anyway?” Smoothskins had a bunch of weird ideas about Ghoul skin falling off and drooling so Gob rarely found himself as a house guest. Wasn’t like anyone ever listened to him explain that it was the _process_ of Ghoulification that made their skin flake off, and once you _were_ a Ghoul it slowed down (otherwise they wouldn’t fucking _have_ any because obviously they didn’t replenish themselves). No one was interested in hearing that most Ghouls retained their lips and feeling in them, which you could tell by _talking_ to them. It was only a few unfortunate souls whose lips were too far gone to form proper words, and at that point damage to the mouth was usually severe enough that their spit glands didn’t work either. Hell, Gob had used to help Doc Barrows patch people up and would occasionally sit in when he studied Ghouls— he could have answered any questions they goddamn had, if anyone bothered to ask.

Dani actually looked a little confused. “Why wouldn’t you come see me?” she asked.

“Why _would_ I?” he asked.

“Friends visit friends, don’t they?” _That_ was probably the saddest thing he’d heard all day.

“You never had a friend, Vaultie?”

“Yes. No. Kind of… the Vault is a lot different from up here. When you breathe the same air as thirty other people... friendship is just different. There were only a handful of kids and we never all got along _properly_ …” She seemed at a real loss to explain herself. “Guess the difference is that friends up here are… voluntary?” she asked, looking hopeful.

“You ain’t put a gun to my head yet, I guess,” he returned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am officially less enthusiastic about chapter titles fuck me. and _fucking honestly where did moira get all the bodies for the raider theme_


	5. Pistol Packin' Mama

Dani shot Colin in the head on a humid Thursday night. No one was in the bar and the air wasn’t moving. Nova was soaked in sweat but unwilling to tear off any layers with a crowd of expectant settlers sitting at a table and leering at her. Gob offered to take off his shirt to scare them all away and she laughed so hard she snorted.

The heat pissed Colin off, half because it was sticky and uncomfortable and half, Gob suspected, because the man thought he deserved to live a life away from the normal wear and tear of the post-apocalyptic Wasteland. If ever there was a man that believed he should possess the only functioning air conditioner left on the planet, it was Colin Moriarty.

Gob knew that Moriarty was in a shit mood, but with making Nova laugh combined with the now nightly visits from Dani when she was in town, he was feeling bold. Maybe even feeling like his life was already shitty enough without Moriarty lording it over him like he’d somehow acquired Gob by being an all around smarter, better looking, more badass guy.

The reality was much more mundane and sort of degrading (not that he’d expect any different from smoothskin slavers). Colin had been scouting for another Nova in Paradise Falls and hadn’t found one that Eulogy Jones was willing to give up for the pittance that Moriarty wanted to spend. Moriarty had questioned the value of Eulogy’s ‘wares’, and Jones had furiously shown him exactly what his handful of caps was worth— the brand new Ghoul that had been caught around the Chryslus building, out of ammo and begging for his life. Well, at that point accepting him had been a matter of pride, and Colin had put up only a little argument before dragging Gob back to Megaton.

“You’re starting to stink up the place, zombie,” Colin said, a pleasant look on his face. Gob hated that the most— whenever he berated his bartender or Nova, he would smile as kind as you please and his voice would be lilting and only barely threatening.

“Couldn’t possibly get any worse,” Gob returned in barely a mumble. He wasn’t brave enough to snap at Colin, not really. Even that much had been mostly an accident.

“Didn’t quite hear you there, Gob. Would ya mind speakin’ up a tad?” Moriarty asked. Gob exhaled shortly and opened his mouth, bracing himself.

The backhand was perfunctory at best— Colin never really got going on bar hours, just enough to put Gob in his place and impress the gawkers— but Dani announced herself with a strangled _“What the fuck?!”_

Moriarty ignored her, shaking out his knuckles and turning to go tend to his computer. Gob gingerly touched his mouth: split open. No one ever considered a Ghoul’s brittle skin when _backhanding_ them though, so it wasn’t like he wasn’t used to it. Blood trickled in between his fingers and he swore quietly, reaching for the rag— god no. He was already a Ghoul, he didn’t want to add whatever fucking disease that rag would give him.

“Gob, holy shit— here give me a second I think I got something—” Dani was rifling through the backpack she carried with her, and brought out the first aid box that she used to hold stimpaks and bandages. He waved her away.

“It’ll heal up in a few hours,” he said, but accepted the clean wipe she handed him to press against it. It stung like hell, but at least it was stinging with sterilizer and not bar gunk.

“How could he do that?” she asked furiously.

“Gobbie owes him big money that just keeps getting bigger,” Nova said from her place at the bar, hovering ready to go grab him whatever he needed from their pitiful stash of medical supplies. She rarely got it so hard— she served a specific purpose, after all— which in the big picture, Gob was grateful for, even if it did mean he got his ass handed to him.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“Moriarty bought me from Paradise Falls,” he said, his lip stinging as he tried to speak. “He acts like he was doing me a huge favour so he doesn’t have to call it slavery. I’m working off a debt,” he explained.

“And the prick charges him food and board for every day he’s here,” Nova said. “Same deal with me, only he didn’t get me from Paradise Falls. I used to run with a few gangs around the Wastes, nothing real bad like Raiders but we did okay. Got sick of watching my back all the time and came to Megaton to try and settle down— had to borrow money from Moriarty to even _start_.”

“I’m going back there to straighten this out,” Dani said, her hand twisted into Gob’s shirt. He realized with an odd sort of distance that this was the closest he’d been to a smoothskin in a very long time— in fact he was pretty sure the last time a fleshy had deigned to be within a foot of him was when _he’d_ had flesh. Nova usually avoided proximity because of Moriarty, because if the owner thought either of them were slacking because they were chatting, he’d set them both straight real fast.

Well, he’d set Gob straight while Nova screamed at him.

“Listen hun, we’ve heard all the rumours about you around town but this is next level shit,” Nova said seriously. Dani frowned.

“Nova, I’ve fought super mutant behemoths. Buying out an old man is a walk in the park,” she said.

“You ever been to Paradise Falls?” she returned shortly. “Slavers aren’t mutants. At least with the muties they’re straightforward and you can always see their weapon.”

“Moriarty keeps one under his desk, a shotgun,” Gob said, trying to feel for any irregularities in his jaw. Ghoul bones were a bit sturdier to compensate for their brittle skin and often arthritic muscles, but the joints were notoriously weak and it was a simple matter to snap his jaw out of place.

“It isn’t gunna come to that,” she said calmly. “I just gotta sit him down and walk him through exactly what the fuck is wrong with this situation-”

“Are you for real?” Nova asked. Gob knew she was.

“We’re in the wastelands fighting for survival, slavery doesn’t help!” she insisted. “You’d have to be brain-dead not to realize how detrimental _enslaving_ each other is—”

“Listen sugar, he’s got two free labourers that haul in more caps than he could ever get paying anyone a _fair wage_. If you think he’s gunna give that up for the greater good of the Wasteland you’re gunna get fucking shot back there and Three-Dog is gunna have to tell everyone you died because you were being stupid,” Nova hissed.

“Look you’re getting worked up about nothing,” Dani insisted, straightening up. Her blue-grey tank was soaked in sweat and her hair was curling wildly in the heat. _She’s gunna fucking die,_ Gob thought in horror.

“You wanna help me out here?” Nova asked him.

“It isn’t a big deal,” Gob tried. “He keeps his hands off Nova and I’m getting good at keeping my mouth shut.” That had been the wrong thing to say and Dani carefully reached out to touch his jaw like she was gunna find something he couldn’t. “I don’t even bruise, it isn’t a problem,” he insisted, trying to feel less weird about a smoothskin touching him. Her fingers were all… squishy. It wasn’t unpleasant but… a lot like she was about to split open if she snagged herself on some skin.

“I’m gunna go back and talk to him,” she said, shuffling past Gob to the door. Nova scowled but neither of them moved to stop her.

The conversation was surprisingly quiet, even with the both of them standing stock still and staring forward in concentration. Every time a settler even rustled Nova would fix them with a glare— Gob would have done something too but every time he fucking frowned people jumped around him like he was going feral.

Both of them shouted when they heard the shot, and Gob’s blood ran cold because _he’d killed the Vaultie._ Moriarty had fucking _shot_ 101— god he hoped she’d died quick, that she wasn’t back there twitching while Colin watched—

Dani walked out, her shotgun still in her trembling hands. “I told him he was being unreasonable and he… he just reached down. I don’t know what he was going for but I—” She actually seemed a little shocked, poor kid. Gob took her gun away— it was hot as shit but his nerves were particularly numb on his palms so it didn’t really hurt to take it— while Nova put her arm around her.

“Gobbie, get the girl a drink,” she said, gesturing to the bar.

“I’m okay… should we… see if Church can’t get him back on his feet?” Dani asked. Gob put the gun down and slowly walked back to the office not five feet from where he’d been standing. Colin Moriarty was slumped over his desk, blood pooling in a dark red puddle under his head. He didn’t move— not a shudder of breath, no reaching out for help. Tentatively, the Ghoul crept forward and nudged his head. He slumped over and the bullet wound in his forehead became visible.

“I… I don’t think he’s getting back on his feet, Vaultie,” he called back to the bar.

“Oh,” he heard her reply, sounding… unsure. “Have… either of you ever killed anyone?” she asked as Gob walked back into the main room. His head was spinning— did he go back to Underworld? It seemed like a fucking stupid idea, being he’d barely made it a few blocks away from the museum before he’d got caught. Trying to get from Megaton to Carol’s was asking for it. Vaultie could probably escort him, but then what happened to the bar?

“One guy, back when I ran with gangs. You all right?” Nova asked, patting her arm. She seemed remarkably calm about this entire situation. Maybe she had a plan.

“I… I need… da—” she stopped her sentence dead, shaking her head. “What happens now?”

“First order of business, informin’ Simms that some wild fucking drunk shot Colin in the head,” Nova said. “I mean we have a dozen witnesses, am I right folks?” she asked loudly at the scattered few settlers that didn’t even look like they’d just sat through a murder. “And the second… fixing the sign outside,” she added thoughtfully.

“Fixing it?” Dani asked, still sounding faintly shocked.

“Well, unless Gobbie’s heading back to Underworld?” she asked, but the Ghoul shook his head. “In that case I think he oughta handle the bar. I can do room arrangements, but I’d rather not deal with the drunks anymore,” she said, curling her nose a bit. Gob snorted.

“Are you still gunna…?” he asked, handing the Vaultie a Nuka spiked with a little rum, to take the edge off. For someone who reportedly killed as many Raiders as she did, Moriarty seemed to be different.

“That depends Gobbie— you think you’re tough enough to try and make me?” she asked. He put his hands up, shaking his head. “That settles it then. Gob’s Saloon, with his charming and untouchable hostess.”

They decided to leave Colin’s body back there for the night— no one would really fault them for that— and Nova turned in after a few hours. Dani stayed at the bar, her fingers white-knuckled on her drink and her eyes unfocused. “You doing okay, Vaultie?” Gob asked.

“I just… I’ve never killed anyone like this before,” she said, looking up. “It’s different when they aren’t shooting at you from across the wastes, when… he was just _sitting_ in his chair and rolling his eyes at me, he wasn’t _listening…”_ She shook her head again, cutting herself off sharply.

“Look kid, no one here is gunna judge you for doing what you did,” he said.

 _“I_ will,” she retorted hotly. “I didn’t follow my Daddy out here to become a rampant murderer, and I’m not gunna let the Wastelands turn me into one. If I’m gunna go back to 101 and try to convince everyone that the pre-war propaganda about the post-nuclear surface was _wrong,_ then I can’t let myself be corrupted by this place. There are so many good people up here, I don’t want to hold a gun and know that I’m not like them,” she said.

“Kid you’re just about the nicest thing in this Wasteland,” Gob said unsurely. He didn’t know where she was finding all this _kindness_ and _goodness_ out in the world, but if there was anyone he could trust it was her. If she seen it, she wouldn’t lie about it.

“That isn’t good enough Gobbie,” she insisted. “The bar is too low, and that’s what I gotta do. Slavery and bandits and cannibals and all this crazy _shit_ you’ve all had to live with your whole lives— you’ve all been told that shit is how it _has_ to be because there’s no fix to the problem. _I’m_ gunna be the fix.”

“You been drinking the bomb-water lately?” he asked. She laughed, shaking her head.

“Nah, see I get clean water out of the robot in my house. Mickey, outside town? He has to drink all the irradiated shit because there’s no _sharing_ happening,” she insisted.

“Ain’t enough resources to go around, Dani, otherwise we’d all be living in clean water, green grass utopia,” he argued. She sat up higher on the barstool, on her knees so she could lean over and get really _into_ his space.

“There will be,” she told him quietly. “Once I find my Daddy we’re gunna purify the basin in front of the Jefferson Memorial.”

“I didn’t slip enough rum in your drink for you to be _this_ drunk,” he returned, his voice lowered as well. He didn’t want the last of the settlers that were hanging around to hear, and… she was _really_ close, all but sitting on the bar in front of him.

 _“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst the fountain of the water of life, freely,”_ she said. Her drink was forgotten and the body in the back was forgotten, and she was almost _vibrating_ as she spoke in whatever poetry she was— Gob didn’t recognize it at least. “My mama’s favourite Bible passage.”

“Where’d your mom get a Bible in the Vault?” he asked. She frowned and sat back.

“She wasn’t in the Vault. Neither was Daddy, and neither was I. I was born in the basement of the Memorial,” she said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the monument. “Learned that from Moriarty… well, his computer, at least. Anyway, you’re missin’ the _point,_ Gobbie. Once I find Daddy, I gotta show him that… that he shouldn’t have left me in the Vault,” she said, her face falling.

“I _did_ give you enough booze to be sad,” he said. “Maybe you oughta stay here tonight.”

“I don’t have enough caps.”

“It’s on Moriarty. He practically insisted,” Gob said dryly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ngl installed a mod all special-like so I could shoot colin in the goddamn head and no one would care bc like fuck am i getting shot for some wasteland justice.


	6. Unhinged His Fucking Jaw

“Is Gob your full name?” The bar was almost empty, a few weeks after Moriarty bit it, with Dani and Billy Creel the only people milling around.

“Gobtholemew,” he said, not drawing his attention away from inventory.

“Really?”

“Why would I make that up?” he asked.

“That’s adorable.”

“I’m glad my made-up name is cute to you, Vaultie. What’s your full name?”

“Daniela Catherine Madison Valdez,” she said, tracing shapes into the grime on the bar. “Mum picked my first name, the other two Daddy picked. Catherine was my mum, and… Madison, I guess, is after Doctor Li.” She frowned.

“That a lot more normal than I expected, to be honest,” he said, to lighten the mood.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. Don’t the pretty ones usually have stupid names?” he asked, casting a look over to her. She was bright red, but grinning.

“You think I’m pretty, Gobbie?” she asked. He turned his head and grunted. She crawled up over the counter and tried to get his attention, but he ignored her. “Gob!” she insisted, spinning him around.

“Customers stay on the other side of the bar,” he said firmly, directing her by the shoulders.

“Since when?”

“Under new management. Weird squishy humans have to stay a foot away from me at all times,” he said, sitting her back down on the barstool.

“That’s plenty of room,” she argued, sitting up on the bar again. He swatted at her but she dodged it— not really surprising, as his hand coming at her gently was probably a relief from Raider bullets coming at her from everywhere— and ended up on his side of the bar again.

“You’re gunna get cut off,” he warned.

“I ain’t even started drinking yet,” she told him.

“You could have fooled me.” She hopped up on the bar and sat down, but reached out to ball her fist into his shirt. “What are you doing now?” he asked.

“Nothin’,” she said, and he should have known better but he didn’t. He dropped his guard and rolled his eyes, moving his hand to untangle her from his clothes, not even bothering to notice how close she was getting. When he looked up to see what she was up to, her face was so close that if he had a nose it’d be touching hers. “Vaultie?” he asked.

And she kissed him, just like that.

He froze like she’d tazed him instead, his arms shooting out to… avoid touching her. Her mouth was nice— kind of… fleshy, which was a weird sensation that he’d forgotten. She sure wasn’t like kissing Tulip, which he’d only done once— an arrangement ended by her, if he remembered right— but more like... kissing something damp and… elastic. Her skin was less dry, less… stiff. He couldn’t describe it but it was weird and not altogether unpleasant and he was sort of curious about what she would do if he reached out to just… see if the rest of her felt like that too. She was a bit pudgier around the middle and he was sure that would be soft.

 _“Aw shit,”_ Creel said from across the room, reminding them that he was there. Gob pulled away quickly, walking back a full three steps before hitting the wall. She looked a little dazed, but was grinning like she’d just dropped her marbles somewhere. “Shit kid,” he said again and Gob turned like he was just… going to keep doing inventory.

“Why do you keep saying that?” Dani asked, but he didn’t hear her move.

“You gotta _ask?”_ Creel responded. He could _hear_ her frowning— she didn’t like when people wouldn’t explain things to her. _Yes, I’ve literally been living under a rock my whole life, now can you just fucking catch me up here for a second?_

“Gob, are you…?” He jumped when she said his name, spinning back to face her like she was gunna shoot him. “Did I do something bad?” she asked, fiddling with the sleeve of her jumpsuit. Billy laughed from where he was sitting and Gob wished he would just fuck _off_ for a second and let him handle this.

“N-No, you’re all right, Vaultie,” he said quickly— she’d asked him if she’d been making him uncomfortable and she _hadn’t._ It wasn’t her fault that she didn’t understand just how… _not done_ that sort of thing was, in both communities. The thought of… it hadn’t _really_ crossed his mind. She was pretty, yeah, and she was just about the nicest person he’d ever met in his life, but… a _human?_ Greta would break a rib laughing and Carol would fret for days about their safety. Half the Underworld would think he was a traitor, and _god_ that was only on his side. The human’s reaction to Three-Dog’s favourite saint and a _Ghoul?_ They’d both be run the fuck out of town, or something.

“I don’t understand, was that… not okay?” she asked.

_It was fine, better than fine. Absolutely no arguments here 101._

_We’re fucked. We’re good and rightly fucked because Creel saw and now he’s gunna go tell everyone that you’re a pervert and I’m… well I’m still gunna be a Ghoul at the end of the day._

“A _zombie,_ kid?” Billy asked, like she was slow. She scowled.

“Shut your fucking mouth Billy Creel, before I do it for you,” she returned angrily.

“You sure shut his— well you unhinged his goddamn jaw, though that don’t really take much, do it?” Billy was one of the _nicer_ people; he had no real problem with Gob himself, but he had a problem with Ghouls just like everyone else did. _Dangerous_ and _feral_ and _gross._

“You’re about to find out just how fucking easy it is to unhinge someone’s jaw,” she warned, getting off of her bar. Gob felt the situation spiralling rapidly out of his control.

“Last call,” he snapped, and both humans turned to look at him. “Last call, either order a drink or get out.” Creel left almost immediately, probably to go fucking tell Jenny Stahl what he’d seen. Dani hovered anxiously where she’d been standing.

“Gob I’m really sorry,” she said, and she _meant_ it which was just as weird as it’d been the first time she’d apologized to him, when she’d _screamed_ upon seeing him.

“It’s all right, you don’t… you just don’t understand a lot about Ghouls. It’s fine,” he said, more to himself than her. “Last call stands, though, and we’re booked up straight for rooms,” he said. She nodded and shuffled to the door. “Night, Vaultie,” he said, to try and assure her that he wasn’t angry.

“Night Gobbie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me kiss ghouls, bethesda.


	7. Nova and Dani Fail the Bechdel Test

Nova looked over Dani’s nails, frowning. The kid was sitting beside her on the mattress she’d claimed as her own— Colin’s, which was clean, underused, and the biggest in the bar (that she hadn’t used for ‘work’)— and looking a little tetchy.

“You got enough dirt under these to start up a farm,” she scolded.

“I wish it was all dirt,” Dani replied with a slow smile. “People don’t bleed dirt.” Nova dropped her hands, her nose curling, and Dani laughed. It was nice to hear, especially since Gob had been acting so weird lately. Ever since Moriarty had died everything had been _brighter_ and _better._ 101 would come in and flirt with Gob, Nova would handle the customers and laugh with her new friend— even her and Gob were getting to some weird place where they were regular friends and not just two slaves within the same building.

Then it all got weird.

Billy Creel came in smug as you please and Gob seemed to just shut down. He barely acknowledged customers outside of their drink orders, which was weird for him— he was a friendly sort. Dani was quieter too, no longer messing things up around the bar and causing trouble. When Billy wasn’t there, they both jumped at the sound of the door opening. _You two are messing with my bar,_ she'd scolded.

_Sorry, Novie._

_Ain't your name on the sign,_ Gob had said flatly.

"Nova, you... know anything about Ghouls?" Dani asked. Nova rolled her eyes.

"Only as much as Gob's told me, why?" she asked.

"Are they like... do they not _like_ humans?"

"Course not. You wouldn't like a bunch of people who called you death warmed over either," she said. “He seems to like us all right, though. Think he was half in love with me before but he’s changed a lot since we first met— poor thing would latch on to anyone who talked to him for longer than it took to order a beer. He didn’t take well to being a slave, couldn’t stomach the fear. He seems all right now; well, maybe not _great_ , slavery don’t just go away, but… better.” Dani nodded thoughtfully, gnawing at her nails. "Don't bite those honey. Let's clean 'em up and get all the blood out," she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate this chapter the most


	8. Tinkerer's Hands

Dani was staring at him and he was starting to sweat. She was just watching and watching and not _saying_ anything. Even when Billy came in and greeted her, she just raised her drink and kept looking at him. "Am I wearin' something of yours?" he asked.

"Nah, Gobbie," she said simply. "Last call pretty soon?”

“You can leave at any time, kid, you don’t gotta wait for me to kick you out.” Creel was watching them from across the way, pretending to be interested in his book.

“You call me kid a lot,” she said, ignoring the dismissal. “I heard Ghouls live a real long time… are you like that?” she asked. It was the first normal sort of thing they’d said to each other in a few weeks and Gob’s relief was probably visible. He could forget about the kiss if he had to, but he didn’t want Dani to stop coming around altogether.

“Nah. Thirty-five, been here for about fifteen years now,” he said. She raised her eyebrows and he snorted. “Guess it is kind of old compared to… what, nineteen?” he asked. He vaguely remembered hearing it mentioned in passing, maybe by Three-Dog.

“Twenty, now.” She didn’t look real keen on talking about it so he didn’t bother to ask when her birthday had been. “And you aren’t _real_ old. Back in the Vault you’d still be considered a pretty eligible bachelor.”

“I doubt that,” he said. “Parents don’t want their kids marrying people without ears.”

“Well I mean, in the Vault you wouldn’t really be a Ghoul in the first place. We don’t get a lot of surface traffic— anyway, not the point. I’m trying to say you don’t have to call me kid.”

“Didn’t mean to give the impression I felt _obligated_ to,” he said, smiling a little. She beamed back and he let out a breathy laugh in relief. “Besides, I doubt a lot of people volunteer their kids up for arranged marriage to someone sixteen years older than them.” She frowned again.

“Well, yeah. I mean, arranged marriage is definitely a thing but it’s all arranged by special marriage consultants. They have all the records of everyone in the Vault and they match pairs based on behavioural compatibility and closely monitor the familial relationships between pairs. I think I was set up with either Butch DeLoria or Paul Hannon— I guess more for behavioural shit than actual relations, since we weren’t from the Vault. I would have given an arm and a leg for Paul,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

“Not a Butch fan?” Gob asked.

“He started a fistfight with me at my tenth birthday party. Apparently our behavioural records are remarkably similar which is really unsurprising, but honestly Paul and I had more in common. Which… wasn’t a lot, in retrospect.” She looked a little nostalgic so Gob didn’t reply. “But it wasn’t out of the question, considering how closely related and sparse our generational population was.”

“You ever think about what it would be like if you hadn’t left the Vault?” he asked. She laughed.

“Statistically speaking I would be Mrs. Butch DeLoria, talented engineer married to a barber because _god forbid_ you call him a hairdresser, trying to convince him to put away his dumbass Tunnel Snake jacket,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ll take my chances in the Wastes, thanks.”

“Up to someone else to get him out of the jacket, I guess.”

“Not fucking likely, as it’s sitting in my closet at home,” she said. He must have looked alarmed because she laughed. “Nah I didn’t kill him— he gave it to me. When Daddy left he let in a load of radroaches. I had a baton I’d ripped from a security guard, and he stopped me in the halls because his mama was getting attacked. Never really _liked_ Mrs. DeLoria but wasn’t about to let her die either.”

“Never a dull moment in the Vaults,” he said, shrugging.

“I like it up here,” she said faintly. “It’s nice to not want to kill something all the time.”

“That a big problem down there?” he asked. She shrugged.

“Tunnel Snakes increase my urge to murder by about half, is all.”

“I wasn’t gunna ask, but what the fuck is a Tunnel Snake?”

Conversation went smoothly after that, occasionally broken by Gob tending to a customer or Nova wandering over to shit talk some drunk. The night progressed well into the morning before Gob gave up for last call— they kept pretty inconsistent hours, but were open later than the Stahl’s were so he wasn’t really worried— and looked at Dani sideways when she didn’t get up to shuffle away.

“We’re booked up again, Vaultie, and you got a house,” he reminded her. She fiddled with her bottle, watching Nova yawn and disappear upstairs.

“Tell me about Ghouls,” she said instead.

“This can’t wait until hours?” he asked.

“Consider it visiting. Will you tell me about Ghouls?” she asked. He sighed a little and threw his rag down, leaning against the bar. She sat ramrod straight on her stool, suddenly.

“I don’t know all of them, Vaultie.” She nodded.

“But… you know anything about how they interact with humans?” she asked. He knew what she was going for but was sort of trying to avoid it. He didn’t want to have to hold her hand while trying to explain to her that it wasn’t worth the shit.

“Usually in a zigzag pattern in the opposite direction— harder to hit that way,” he said. She looked vaguely alarmed. “Look, humans treat Ghouls like shit and Ghouls are either really scared of ‘em or really pissed off at ‘em. There’s no in betweens, no grey area.”

“There’s always grey area,” she argued stubbornly. “Nova said you were into her for a long time.”

“She didn’t beat me and actually treated me like a person. For a brand new slave that’s kind of a big deal,” he said shortly. “It ain’t like that now.”

“Still grey area— are you scared of her now? Do you hate her?”

“ _No._ ”

“Grey area. Do you not like me because I’m human?”

“No, Vaultie, I like you just fine.”

“Then I want you to tell me what I did wrong that made you so upset that Billy Creel saw me kiss you. You’re the first Ghoul I ever met in my life and only the third person I’ve ever kissed, and I just… don’t get it. I thought that was how it was supposed to happen.” She had to come at it like a technical bug, like there was an unexpected irregularity in the programming.

“Okay, Vaultie, there aren’t a lot of human and ghoul… _relationships._ Outside of business and slavery, maybe the occasional _person you knew before you got ghouled?_ People think it’s fucked up— both sides think it’s fucked up. Ghouls think it’s stupid for you to even _want_ to be with a human like that, people who call us zombies and shit, and humans think it’s some kind of kink,” he explained slowly.

“It isn’t,” she defended. “You’re nice, and you’re nice even though everyone is shit to you. You were nice even after I screamed, you gave me a discount when I didn’t have a cap to my name…”

“Being nice doesn’t cost anything, Dani,” he said.

“I didn’t say it did!” she snapped. “I’m saying that out of everyone in the damn fucking Wasteland you’re one of the only ones whose never done a thing to make me question what I’m doing up here. You helped me get on the trail to find my dad even though Moriarty would… he would fucking lose his mind if he’d known you showed me that terminal! You were scared to death and you still helped me. Why shouldn’t I like that about you?”

The bar got real quiet for a while and Gob didn’t move. He didn’t really… understand, completely. Being a Ghoul was a hard stop for almost every human he’d ever met— Nova talked about letting him ‘close’ but it had been out of a sense of pity and camaraderie rather than genuine romantic affection. It just… it was _unlikely_ that she didn’t have some sort of motive for this whole gesture, and it seemed weirdly unnecessary to fuck him up like she was because he would have given her whatever she asked for anyway. She’d effectively freed him, gave him the deed to the bar like it belonged with him, threatened to dislocate Billy Creel’s jaw for him— he could repay her in information or caps or whatever she damn well asked for. Going further was just… redundant.

“Do you need a place to stay?” he asked, and she frowned. “Or caps? The business is doing all right and me and Nova are used to getting by, you can have caps if you want them.”

“Gob,” she insisted, crawling over the bar. He took one step back but not another, because he’d lost all his higher thinking abilities. Dani was standing in front of him, her RobCo jumpsuit tied around her waist to hide the bloodstains and her hair flopping over into her eyes. She had brown eyes, real dark, just like her dad when he’d fixed his gaze on Gob. “I’m not… I don’t need _things_ from you.”

“So what _do_ you want?” he asked, his throat feeling dry.

“I… kind of want you to tell me what you think about humans,” she said, reaching out to fiddle with the hem of his shirt. She had idle hands, a tinkerers hands that were never still and always touching something. She liked to make the rims of Nuka bottles squeak and follow the lines of hems with her fingers.

“Fuck humans,” he said automatically, sort of unnerved when she shuffled back a bit. “Not you, though. Never really met a human who’d go through so much trouble to fix a Wasteland constantly trying to kill her.”

It wasn’t a long reach for her to kiss him, though he did have to stoop a little- it gave him an excuse to press his hands to her waist through her jumpsuit, a little freaked out at how soft she was even through the rough material. He almost laughed because _holy shit_ , but didn’t manage more than a breath before they were kissing again. Her fingers very carefully moved over his face, nervous around chunks of missing skin and his hair.

He couldn’t say he was any braver though. He didn’t really think he was accidentally gunna tear out a chunk of her hair or anything, but it was weirdly thick and all tangled, and his fingers couldn’t really run through all of it without snagging on a knot or a curl. Her face got more and more flushed every time he looked at it, for the briefest of moments before getting back into the kissing part, and she was elastic all over. Every time she applied pressure to his skin it just… stayed (contrary to popular belief, his skin wasn’t a _squishing_ sort of rot- it was more of a severe weathering than a gooey problem). Pressure on her skin was just accepted, then when it was removed she bounced back like a balloon full of water.

When she stopped she shuffled back only far enough to let him know that she was done, but didn’t leave the circle that his arms made around her. "So was that all right?" she asked. She still didn’t understand, he knew. If he said it was fine then it was just a matter of time before she realized that _they_ weren’t the problem, that everyone else in the fucking world was the problem, and eventually broke it off because she was embarrassed.

“ _Shit,”_ he muttered, which made her laugh. “So you wanna… tell people and shit?”

“If that’s what you want, then yeah,” she said, her fingers working the neckline of his shirt. Sometimes he wished he had one of those goofy Pip-Boys, just so she could save some of his hems the strain of tugging on them— well, at that particular moment he didn’t quite care. She could rip the damn thing in half if she felt like it.

He kissed her again, because he could, lifting her up on the bar so he didn’t have to stoop. There would be things that would have to be addressed— his skin was delicate and his joints were arthritic and he tended to flinch at his own shadow. Her skin was fragile and she was never in town and better yet she was a hero across the ruins. Not even Three-Dog would wholly support Ghouls, and he was one of the better ones— Gob could only imagine what the airwaves would sound like once this got out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaannnddd that's it. My writing blog is here and I take prompts and post stuff and talk sometimes and reblog the fic of better authors than me. you haven't lived until you've seen me rant about how much I fucking hate ao3 stream blogs. also if you couldn't tell I also like to play fast and loose with ghouls because I reject canon whenever I can because I can.


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